Presently there exist many different types of services that can be provided to client devices over some form of shared network infrastructure. For example, a server system may provide a message forwarding service, whereby messages, such as e-mail, are “pushed” to the client device over the shared network infrastructure. If a server providing one of these services needs to notify a client device that the service has been terminated, one way in which it might provide such notification would be through the use of one or more termination of service (ToS) packets. A potential problem with such ToS packets, particularly in the situation where ToS packets are sent over a non-encrypted channel, is the possible risk that someone might spoof such packets for the purposes of carrying out denial of service (DoS) type attacks.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to improve methods for providing ToS notification.
Similar reference numerals may have been used in different figures to denote similar components.